Planned in collaboration with Gertjan Zuilhof, curator of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the exhibition is the third installment of the NPM’s World View Cinema series. “I hope that people who have had very little experience with modern art can come to the show ... and open themselves to a new experience,” said Zuilhof to The China Post during the opening.

“I think this exhibition gives them the possibility to do that because it’s not very big and the works are ... not difficult or complicated ... if you’re open to them,” he continued.

While some people might ask why the NPM is hosting an avant-garde show, for us it is very natural to hold this special exhibition, said NPM Director Lin Mun-lee.

“I believe a museum must not only preserve history through its collections but at the same time venture into new ways of thinking and doing...A museum has the responsibility to the public of continually seeking to renew its image,” she added. The exhibition features the works of renowned artists who hail from all corners of the world, including Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang, Israeli video artist Yael Bartana and Australian video artist Merilyn Fairskye.

Austrian visual artist and filmmaker Edgar Honetschlager, American filmmaker Deborah Stratman, Austrian artist and local resident Ella Raidel in a collaborative effort with HongJohn Lin also contribute their original film installations. “They’re all artists and all filmmakers at the same time. And that’s the basic idea,” Zuilhof explained as the reason for choosing them for the exhibit.

Most of the works are making their world premieres at the NPM, for they are either completely new or have been modified or adapted especially for this exhibition, he noted.

The film installations have been carefully crafted by the artists in distinct and separate spaces, each with a unique vision.

Works range the gamut of themes and sensations, from Honetschlager’s fairy tale romance “Beijing Holiday” starring himself and a life-size mannequin of former first lady of China Soong May-ling, to Fairskye’s futuristic “Stati d’Animo,” a melange of blurred images shot at airports throughout the world.

Other installations include Tsai’s “An Erotic Space,” Weerasethakul’s “The Palace,” Stratman’s “Four Act Balance,” Bartana’s “Wild Seeds,” and Raidel and Lin’s “Somewhere, late afternoon...” “It’s quite a special project for me. It’s in another country and it’s in a museum that is not for modern art,” remarked the curator of his first collaboration in Taiwan.

Free screenings of the artists’ short films, some rarely-seen, will also be offered at the NPM’s auditorium starting July 18. More information can be found at the exhibition’s Web site, www.npm.gov.tw/events/96events/installations/.

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